Baha'i News -- Crisis in Christian country in Western Province, Papua New Guinea

Dancing around development: Crisis in Christian country in Western Province, Papua New Guinea

Source: Oceania
Publication date: 2002-03-01
Arrival time: 2002-08-01

ABSTRACT

This article explores the conjuncture of Christianity and development in light of the establishment of a new Gogodala church
in Western Province, Papua New Guinea. In the paper, I examine the ways in which members of this new church, the Congregation of
Evangelical Fellowship (CEF), are utilising the concept of dance to comment on the failure of both expatriate missionaries and the
dominant Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea (ECPNG) to prepare the Gogodala community for development. I trace how mission-
instigated abstention from dance became emblematic of a Christian lifestyle, and remains central to the constitution and
articulation of `Christian country' in this part of PNG. The incorporation of dance into CEF services and conferences, then,
posits a challenge to the expatriate mission and ECPNG. In the process, dance has become a metaphor for a communal search for
development as well as a reinterpretation of the Christian and pre-contact past.

In late 1997, a travelling evangelist preached to an excited Gogodala crowd gathered at the Balimo Council Chambers in
Western Province. `This is Holy Spirit party time', he yelled; `you can dance as much as you want' and the roar of approval
that followed echoed down the main road of Balimo. The noise of electric guitars split the night and people broke into dance,
moving their bodies in frenzied activity. `Everybody went crazy' recalled one man, smiling as he remembered the hundreds of
people who attended that night. Laden with electric guitars and speakers, several Melanesian evangelists spoke in English and
Tok Pisin to the crowds gathered at the Council Chambers. As the crowd danced, a preacher from Manus compelled those present to
`come out from under' the Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea (ECPNG), to `come out from what you are doing now'.

This event marked the first public convention of a new Gogodala
Church called the Congregation of Evangelical Fellowship or CER.1 As
such, it posited an explicit challenge to the dominant ECPNG and a
closely associated expatriate Christian mission called the Pioneers.
When I arrived in Western Province for the first time in January
1995, accompanied by my partner Charles, the ECPNG was the
predominant religious organisation in the Gogodala region, as it had
been since the 1960s. But it was obvious even then that there were
substantial and ongoing critiques concerning the relevance and
policies of both white mission staff and the local ECPNG hierarchy.
There were rumblings of insurrection and dissatisfaction at various
levels. However, when we returned in late 1998, the crisis had
become public. Suddenly there were several new churches available,
not just in Balimo but in many of the outlying villages as well.

Appealing to pan-Melanesian evangelical ties, the Gogodala
leaders of this new church are challenging the basis of the intimate
relationship between mission and the ECPNG. For, although the
seventy-year relationship between white missionaries and the
Gogodala has been strained in recent years, mission staff continue
to be defined in terms of their central role in the development
process. The Pioneers, who derived from the Unevangelised Fields
Mission (UFM) and, more recently, the Asia Pacific Christian Mission
(APCM), have resided with the Gogodala since the 1930s.2 From the
outset, the mission was central to perceptions and experiences of
development. Mission effort, finances and personnel facilitated the
establishment of schools, medical centres, a nursing school and an
evangelical church. Despite this, there has been a growing critique
of the failure of the mission to adequately prepare the Gogodala for
development. At the CEF convention, those gathered were encouraged
to distinguish themselves from expatriates and the established
leadership of the ECPNG, to `come out from being those sort of
people' and explore new forms of expression and creativity - in this
case, through dance.

In this paper, I not only explore the ways in which dance has
become a pivotal concept in the conflict between CEF and ECPNG, but
also the way it prefigures a more general dialogue about the
relationship between development, custom and Christianity. Just why
these people have recently challenged the ECPNG's version of their
Christianity is a central question; this paper brings into focus
some of the reasons that Gogodala people are metaphorically dancing
around the issue of development and how it relates to Christianity
and what they call iniwa ela gi or `customary ways'.

I also examine the extent to which the first CEF conference made
public a general sense of dissatisfaction with the Gogodala
experience of development, and analyse how local ideas about it are
intertwined with Gogodala understandings of evangelical
Christianity.3 The public affirmation of a new Church, with dancing
at the centre of its worship, has raised concerns about what the
future entails for the Gogodala. Henry, Magowan & Murray (2000:256)
argue in a recent volume on the politics of dance that dance
presents 'a medium for political engagement' that can be 'a means of
interpreting, legitimating, reproducing and/or resisting categorical
identities'. Dance, or the absence of it, has been an important
indicator of Christianity since the period of early evangelisation.
Dance, like `customary ways' and carvings associated with past
ceremonial knowledge and practices, plays a significant role in the
dialogue revolving around the confluence of Christianity, custom,
and development. The incorporation of different dance movements into
Christian worship underscores an increasingly strident critique of
both expatriate missionaries and leaders of the ECPNG Church. CEF
members are utilising this discourse on dance to engage the
relationship between mission and church in the hope that by thus
empowering themselves they can affect the course of their own development.

THE TWELVE COMMANDMENTS

From the outset, dancing was one of the main activities targeted
by early missionaries and subsequent local pastors and Christians.
In evangelical missions in the Pacific, dance was discouraged and
there was particular concern about those dances `that involved
vigorous and uncontrolled bodily movement' (Eves 1996:93). This is
not perhaps surprising as dance has often occupied the space between
colonialism and culture, the suppression, or transformation of dance
by colonial authorities a sign of its potential to create
`considerable political and moral anxiety' (Reed 1998:506). For
evangelical missionaries in particular, the cessation of these
bodily comportments was seen to be a sign of the acceptance of a Christian lifestyle.4

Although James Chalmers, from the London Missionary Society,
contacted Gogodala Fly River villagers in 1898, the contact was
brief. It was not until 1932 that missionaries from the non-
denominational evangelical UFM arrived in the area. These
missionaries were intent on moving north from their base at Madiri
Plantation on the southern bank of the Fly River and saw the Fly as
their way into the interior of Papua.5 Gogodala plantation workers
informed missionaries of the presence of numerous villages inland on
the northern side of the Fly.6 Impressed by the Gogodala work ethic,
Albert Drysdale of the UFM organised an expedition across the river
from Madiri to contact these villages in 1932.7 After establishing a
mission station at Wasua, Drysdale moved forty kilometres inland to
find new villages and in 1934 set up a second mission station at
Balimo, a large village on Kabili lagoon. Balimo subsequently became
the mission and administrative centre of the Gogodala area and is
now the headquarters of the Middle Fly District of Western Province.

From the early 1930s, UFM missionaries maintained a constant
presence in the area, as well as making their way further up the Fly
River. Many of the early missionaries to contact other areas in
Western Province and neighbouring districts were Gogodala pastors
and converts.8 For Gogodala communities, it was the first experience
of living in close contact with white people and formed the basis of
images and conceptualisations of development based on the
capabilities, medicines, bodies and equipment of Europeans (Dundon 1998; Wilde 1997).

From its inception, the local form of Christianity was predicated
on certain prescriptions about activities associated with past
'heathen' practices and beliefs.9 Tobacco smoking, for instance, a
common habit for both Gogodala men and women, was targeted as was
the drinking of i sika or kava, which was locally grown. The chewing
of betelnut was also forbidden. In reference to these prohibitions
on smoking and drinking, many Gogodala in the late 1990s suggested
that they were given twelve commandments rather than ten like other
Christians. Missionaries also maintained that ceremonies, objects
and dances associated with male initiatory processes, which
culminated in Aida ceremonies, were anathema to a burgeoning
interest in Christianity (Weymouth 1978:140-1).10 Missionaries and
Gogodala Christians travelled around neighbouring villages,
encouraging the destruction of Aida male ceremon\ial objects and the
cessation of dances and activities associated with them.

Dances, called maiyata, were an integral part of Aida Gi, the
male initiatory cycle and other major feasts and celebrations.
Indeed, the different stages of these ceremonies were known as Aida
Maiyata `Aids dance', Gi Maiyata `preparatory dance', and Gawa
Maiyata or `canoe dance'. Fuelled by the sound of the sacred diwaka
drum and small hand-held drums, these dances involved men and women,
with clan insignia painted on their bodies and on elaborate masks,
headdresses and drums, engaged in formalistic and often sexually
explicit movements. They danced inside and underneath the enormous
longhouses, concluding the celebrations with the consumption of
large amounts of prepared foods, including sago and yams. It is not
surprising, then, that these maiyata were discouraged by the early
missionaries and their Gogodala companions. As Thomas (1991:153)
notes, throughout the Pacific evangelical missionaries in particular
focussed on the repudiation of `emblematic customs' and the
destruction or public display of local 'idols'.

Kawaleya Gauba from Kini village was a young boy when the first
missionaries came to Kimama village, near Balimo. He recalls that
they came to the village and said to those gathered: `do (you) want
Aida or Jesus?'. In 1936, several men from Kimama led by Pasiya, a
recent convert to Christianity and a `head man' of Kimama, presented
a piece of paper to these missionaries on which was written `sae
paepae iwiminenae Aida lopala sae iwiminenae Jesus' which means `we
don't want Aida things, we want Jesus'. Much contemporary
significance is attached to this 'vow' made by Pasiya and others at
Kimama in the 1930s. Many in Balimo in the late 1990s attributed the
local acceptance of Christianity to the vow that Pasiya took at this
time. They suggested that Pasiya resolved the debate over whether to
`go with Aida or Jesus'.

Many villages were resistant to the teachings of the missionaries
and their young converts. Some imposed heavy fines of sago on those
who converted to Christianity, while others hid their ceremonial
objects and decorations in the bush. Missionaries were threatened
and local Christians were given extra cleaning and clearing duties
in the village for failing to participate in dances and ceremonies.
Despite this, there were repeated instances of the destruction of
decorated canoe prows as well as the public display and burning of
primary ritual objects including shields, drums, figures and
rattles.11 Consequently, within twenty years of the mission's
arrival, the salience and practice of much ceremonial life,
particularly that based on maiyata gi or dance, had waned.

CRISIS IN CHRISTIAN COUNTRY

In July 1966, the Evangelical Church of Papua (ECP) was
inaugurated in Balimo, based on a constitution drafted by Charles
Home, a UFM missionary. It marked the beginning of the separation of
the expatriate mission from the Gogodala church, an institution that
had been developed by both Gogodala pastors and white missionaries.
At first, the ECP leadership, which was dominated by Gogodala
pastors and lay Christians, administered some ten districts
designated by either linguistic categories or geographical proximity
(Prince & Prince 1991: 10-11). By the mid 1970s, however, the Church
had grown considerably and these districts became incorporated into
a limited number of regions, of which the Gogodala region was but
one (Prince & Prince 1991:85-6). By 1990, the ECP had become the
Evangelical Church of Papua New Guinea (ECPNG), a title more
indicative of its emerging national character.

When Charles and I first arrived in Balimo in 1995, Gogodala
communities had a reputation for being particularly uncompromising
in their Christianity. The ECPNG community had maintained, over the
intervening years, a general policy that included the prohibition of
the consumption of alcohol and other drugs, the smoking of tobacco
and the chewing of betelnut and, to a certain extent, dancing.
Although there are a limited number of stylistic movements and
actions that accompany the repertoire of songs in ECPNG church
services, vigorous or uncontrolled bodily movement is still strongly
discouraged. Gogodala people referred to themselves as living in
`Christian country', which distinguished them from others, Christian
and non-Christian, in Papua New Guinea. Many Gogodala argued that
other communities had not embraced Christianity with the same
fervour, and continued to utilise magic, sorcery and other aspects
of their past that the Gogodala had rejected. Thus their Christian
lifestyle set them apart from other people and places.

In the 1970s, an expatriate Assistant District Manager organised
public dances at which he insisted that men partner women.12 The
dances were held in the afternoon and evening, often continuing into
the night, where couples danced to the light of kerosene lanterns.
During this time, there were `string bands' in many villages who
presided over nightly parties or 'discos' in which young people, in
particular, participated. `Disco dancing' was a common feature of
these parties, the young people dancing to music on the radio if
bands were not available. ECPNG Christians were instructed not to
attend, and those that did were encouraged not to participate. In
the late 1980s and 1990s, EC!PNG village pastors began a concerted
campaign in village churches, against these dancing parties arguing
that they were the source of illegitimate children. There was
general wrangling over whether the people who attended these dances
were Christians or not and much discussion of the issue in village
churches.

Dancing is known to provoke passionate or violent responses. In
one incident in 1998, a deacon of a local church heard about the
organization of a party and set out to find and stop it. Coming
across some girls, the deacon and his wife tried to catch them but
they ran off. The party, however, was broken up and the young people
quickly dispersed into the night. The deacon found only a young man
sitting on the grass and he was so angry that he hit him over the
head with his lantern, breaking the lantern in the process. The boy,
in return, threw a punch at the deacon splitting his lip and chin.

In 1995 and 1996, for the length of our initial stay at Tai
village, a commitment to the ECPNG Church formed the basis of a
local lifestyle or way of life, expressed in Gogodala as ela gi. At
Tai, the Church building dominates the village and is the primary
public and social space. It was used as the basis of every major
village event, from the annual Christmas feast, church services,
medical clinics, to meetings about cows and other local business
concerns. It was the place where village matters were made public or
`brought out to the people', an arena for the resolution of conflict
and concern.13

There were several ECPNG conferences and celebrations held
throughout the year and most Tai villagers attended at least one of
these conferences, although this meant travelling to villages
located throughout the district.14 Church attendance was high and
fairly regular, although there was a constant dialogue about those
considered lax. In 1995, ECPNG members in all twenty-eight villages
had their photographs taken in preparation for the development of
ECPNG identification cards. Many felt that this process would weed
out `skin Christians', by definition less committed to the Church,
and confirm their own identification with the ECPNG. Certainly in
1995-6, it was impressed upon me that there was a village and wider
community commitment to the tenets and activities of the ECPNG
Church.

Returning to the area in 1998, after a two-year absence, we were
confronted with several significant changes to Christian country.
Most noticeably, an American Seventh Day Adventist (SDA) missionary,
had established himself and his family at Kotale village on the
Aramia River.15 Although facing considerable opposition from members
and officials of the dominant ECPNG Church at Kotale, this SDA man
continued to live quite harmoniously with other Kotale villagers. By
1999, he and his wife had established a SDA school for Kotale
children that was proving an attractive alternative to the local
community school run by the Department of Education. In 1999 and
2000, many families began attending the revitalised SDA Church at
Kotale so that they could send their children to the new school.

We became increasingly aware that there were a growing number of
new churches and missions in the area. Even those that had been
established for some time, as an alternative to the ECPNG, were
experiencing new impetus and support. In 1995 and 1996, there had
been several different churches operating but they had seemed
peripheral and largely ineffectual, tending to be small groups loyal
to Baha'i or SDA, Lutheran, and Baptist Churches. In 1998 and 1999,
however, the schisms barely apparent to us three years earlier had
become more obvious.

But the establishment of the CEF was the most disturbing
development for members of the ECPNG, as it represents considerable
disquiet with the politics and policies of the ECPNG hierarchy. Much
of this criticism can be traced to celebrations held for the ECPNG
Silver Jubilee in 1991 during which a group of educated Gogodala
came together, from various areas of PNG, and began to question the
role and commitment of Pioneer staff and the ECPNG leadership. They
raised the issue of initiating training programs in which ECPNG
pastors and local church leaders could be trained to take over from
mission staff, as well as be qualified to deal with contemporary
social problems related to money and the consumption of drugs and
alcohol.

In 1992, as ECPNG leaders discussed the practicalities of such
programs, the Gogodala region was suspended from Church activities
by the ECPNG hierarchy in Tari, Southern Highlands, after the new
leader of theChurch, a man from Lake Murray, accused the Gogodala
region of plotting against him.16 Gogodala ECPNG members were
furious and several began to preach insurrection against this new
leadership.

Around this time, the CEF came into being in Port Moresby led by
an ex-ECPNG pastor and former Chairperson of the ECPNG, who was
concerned about the lack of trained Gogodala pastors and church
administrators, arguing that ECPNG people in other areas were
receiving this kind of education and support. He argued that the
Gogodala had been integral to the development of the ECPNG and yet
received little in return. His contention was that the Gogodala had
formed the ECPNG Church and that they should play a prominent role
in its administration.

Legal documents were processed for the establishment of this new
church and the first CEF convention was held in 1997 in Western
Province. At the next conference, held a couple of months later, it
was pointed out that the ECPNG was not registered as a church but
was instead part of a Property
Trust in collaboration with the APCM
mission. Hundreds of photocopies of CEF registration papers were
distributed for people to look at. People were amazed and shocked
and many argued that the mission had 'tricked' them, as they are
aware that the registration of an institution acknowledges its
public legitimacy.17 The organisers of the convention argued that
the CEF was the only `true Gogodala Church' and that, as such, they
had `come to take over ECP properties'.

CEF now has a large following in Port Moresby, where it was first
established amongst the resident Gogodala, as well as in the
Gogodala region in Western Province.18 Since its registration as a
Church, the CEF has grown into a considerable group of politically
aware and active Gogodala. One of the founders is the first Gogodala
man to hold a Bachelor of Divinity from Banz Bible College, Hagen.19
Similarly, his supporters in the CEF are the educated and
professional elite, who have grown up in the ECPNG as the children
of ECPNG pastors. In the past, it was primarily children of pastors
who were given preference in terms of mission-run education.
Ironically, many of these now preach dissent against the ECPNG,
though one person suggested that these pastors and educated
Christians were those 'children who managed to sneak through and get
educated. They are the ones bringing other churches'. Many are
teachers, workers and business people. CEF converts also include
significant members of local villages. We discovered that a
prominent man in Tai village, together with his extended family, had
stopped attending the ECPNG Church and had declared himself a pastor
of CEF. The defection of this man exacerbated a major rift between
himself and the local ECPNG pastor, resulting in several public
confrontations. It has split families and villages, with stories of
women leaving their husbands to join the CEF and becoming involved
with other men in their new church.

TEACHING BIG BROTHER

If the declaration of the CEF represents a crisis for Christian
country, it also prefigures and makes public an internal and local
discourse about the continuing role of expatriate missionaries in
development and Christianity. The context of this particular
discussion relates to a story that traces the relationship to an
original moment when the ancestors of Europeans and Gogodala were
brothers. In this ancestral story, the Gogodala man was the elder
brother, his younger brother the ancestor of white people. Their
father made the brothers choose between guns, and bows and arrows.
The elder brother took the bows and arrows, to the chagrin of his
descendants. The father then gave the gun to the white brother and
took him away to another place, imbuing him with material and
educational advantages. As a result of ancestral error, then,
Gogodala do not have the same access to material goods, houses,
equipment, and education as white people. The return of expatriates
to the area in the 1930s, in the form of UFM staff, is often said to
represent a `second chance' for Gogodala people (see Wilde 1997).

This is linked to the belief that white people are the returned
dead of the Gogodala, who have travelled away to Wabila, the place
of the dead, and returned some years later to assist their
relatives. It is also based on an ancestral story that relates how,
on the journey from the living to the dead, Gogodala go through a
cleansing process whereby their skins become white. This kind of
belief about the role and intention of white people in the area is
not stated publicly or as vociferously as in previous times. Pastors
preach against such beliefs and expectations in village churches on
a weekly basis. Yet it remains an underlying perception that
underpins the critique of white missionaries.

When missionaries first arrived, the Gogodala demeanour was
characterised in mission and administrative accounts as both passive
and welcoming. By local accounts, interest in the newcomers was
based on an idea that white and black were intimately related.
Integral to this was the notion that missionaries were morally
obligated to teach their Gogodala 'brothers' the basis of their
lifestyle in Australia and Britain. Gogodala people were also quite
aware of the importance of these missionaries in the establishment
of schools and medical facilities in their villages. The early
mission to Balimo concentrated on education and literacy, believing
that fostering an indigenous Christianity based on the Bible was
paramount. The missionaries set up schools, dispensed medical
supplies and expertise, traded axes, knives and calico for fresh
food, as well as conducting daily services and initiating the
translation of the Bible into the vernacular (Lea 1940: 10-11).20

Local feelings of discontent are based on the belief that the
missionaries failed to, firstly, understand and respect this
intimate relationship; and, secondly, to fulfil the obligations of
it through the development of the local community. There is a widely-
held community conviction, even by those educated and living in Port
Moresby, that the missionaries didn't `teach the Gogodala properly':
that they obscured rather than educated and that they hid
significant parts of the Biblical text. And, although early mission
staff concentrated on education at the local level, Gogodala play
little role in higher educational institutions in Papua New
Guinea.21 Resentment towards mission staff has only intensified with
the imminent withdrawal of the Pioneer missionaries from the area.22

Concern about the continued presence of expatriates in the region
has taken various forms over the last few years. There have been
discussions about the presence of certain missionaries and threats
to withdraw visa support by the leaders of the ECPNG. In 1996, a
fire was lit under the house of an expatriate doctor and his family,
and there have been numerous break-ins and thefts in mission
facilities in recent years. There have been protestations about
mission houses and facilities remaining under the control of
missionaries and, in the last two years, access to and
administration of these premises has been granted to the ECPNG.

Complaints about missionary control of the resources and
equipment of mission stations in Balimo and Kawito have an important
subtext. Educated Gogodala, often teachers, who have experience of
other places and people throughout PNG, have denounced the relative
poverty of the ECPNG Church. Catholic and other Protestant Churches
in PNG have access to much larger revenues than the ECPNG. The issue
of money is salient in this context and linked to understandings of
development. Throughout the years, the mission and the ECPNG have
maintained their critical stance on money and business, despite
establishing a Christian company called PASUWE in an attempt to
marry development and Christianity at the local level in PNG.23 This
has resulted, Gogodala believe, in a dearth of local business
acumen, and my attention was often drawn to the lack of viable
Gogodala businesses in the area. Gogodala, people say, do not
understand money and cannot seem to manipulate it like others in PNG
can and do. Yet ECPNG pastors continue to preach about the love of
money as `the root of all evil' and argue against the establishment
of local businesses.

From the beginning, missionaries were concerned with the moral
character of the Gogodala and sought to counterbalance the degrading
influence of white people and other colonial agents on indigenous
people witnessed in many areas of Papua New Guinea. They moved to
initiate a modest lifestyle amongst the Gogodala, based on a
marriage between Christianity and the local subsistence economy.24
In this process, money was portrayed as one of the attendant evils
of white people, to be avoided where possible.25 The blame for a
lack of financial equity for the ECPNG, and for its relative
insignificance on the national stage, has, to a large extent, been
laid at the feet of the mission.

By late 1999 and early 2000, much of the furore over the
establishment of the CEF had died down. The ECPNG, however, is going
through an internal examination of its primary policies and tenets,
particularly in the Balimo region, as remaining expatriate
missionaries prepare to withdraw permanently. Meanwhile, the SDA
Church in Kotale gathers Gogodala villagers with the effort and
presence of American missionaries, and CEF and other churches
continue to draw people, both urban and village-based, to their
services with their emphasis on dance and music.

THE DIM LIGHT OF DEVELOPMENT

When this development is coming, I don't know where we are going
to [be] - I don't know where we are heading. [I] don't know if we
will be a successful people in a happy place. When [I was the] age
of Bebema [15 years old], it was a dim light, it was very small.
After the war we could see the development coming; it was a big
light. We don't kn\ow what is coming. Things right now [are] getting
better. Things those days were hard. Development [is] coming in and
[the] light [is] coming in [and] things are getting better (Kawaleya
Gauba, Kini village, November 1998).

The idea of development is a very salient one in Papua New
Guinea. The issue of development, or lack thereof, foregrounds
discussions about violence and raskolism in PNG (Goddard 1995;
Kulick 1993; Roscoe 1999); about cargo cults and millenarian
movements (Lattas 1992); about money and markets (Healey 1989);
about bodies and Christianity (Clark 1992) and in discussions of
land and resource rights (Brown & Ploeg 1997).

Michael Goddard (1995:67) writes in relation to the problem of
violence in PNG and its links to development, that despite being a
familiar term, even officially `the concept of development is
opaque'. He continues, however, that:

[t]o most Papua New Guineans, in contrast, the concept presents
itself simply and tangibly. Particularly in rural areas, the Tok
Pisin transliteration developmen connotes cash, infrastructure, and
services and medical centres. However, their acquisition is often
influenced by complexities of prestige and obligation that are
rarely anticipated by development planners (Goddard 1995:67).

Development is a term well known among the Gogodala, and is
referred to as apela gi, a concept that is more closely associated
with growing bodies, referring to the process of `growing up' or
maturing. Its meaning for Gogodala people is not the result of a
simple incorporation of colonial or post-Independence attitudes
about economic growth and quantitative improvement in the quality of
life, although these are certainly aspects. Neither is it only about
specific development projects and projected outcomes. One person
explained that apela gi is like a body or garden; `it grows up
before your eyes from the ground up'. It is linked to the attainment
of adulthood, a state of being associated with responsibility,
maturity, and strength.26

Development results in a desirable lifestyle or ela gi. It is
envisaged as the means by which these communities will transform
their places and practices through the inclusion of European
technologies and foods within the tenets of a local lifestyle. In
the process, a new integrated way of life will be enjoined. In the
search for development, Gogodala, like many others in PNG, are
involved in an ongoing process of negotiating the types of people
that they are, the places in which they live and the future that
will result after the attainment of development.27 For many, the
process of development and its outcomes are very troubling, however
desirable (see Dundon in press). What kind of place will this area
'grow' into? Will it grow into a mature, responsible and prosperous
place, or will it ultimately transform the people and their places
beyond recognition?

These kinds of questions are central to the debate on the
significance of dance in Christian worship, exemplified in the CEF -
ECPNG division. Apela gi or development is predicated on the
presence of responsible adults to ensure that people and things
continue to mature in the appropriate way, and that they are
provided with certain information and skills. For the majority of
Gogodala, the UFM and mission staff have provided the impetus for
this kind of growth. They have guided, disciplined and laid out the
basis for the future, teaching small brother, the Gogodala, the ways
in which certain forms of development can be initiated. Development
and Christianity are firmly intertwined, so that the acquisition of
development is not predicated on the denial of Christianity - indeed
development will only come if people continue to act upon their
Christian beliefs. It is, rather, a question of whether missionary
teachers provided the foundation for such development.

Robbins (1995:212) has argued that the Urapmin of West Sepik
Province view Christianity as the 'lens' through which development
and transformation become visible. He writes: `it is through their
understanding of Christianity and what it means for their view of
themselves and their environment that the Urapmin have interpreted
the possibility of development' (Robbins 1995:214). I have argued
elsewhere that Gogodala view their Christianity and possibilities of
development in terms of a local lifestyle, or ela gi (Dundon in
press). Discussions about development, then, are always embedded in
understandings and experiences of ela gi and Christianity. An
elderly ECPNG pastor said in 2000:

Before it was UFM and then [the] ECP Church and now all the
churches are coming in and I keep asking 'are we worshipping one God
or many gods?' This development is coming in and different churches
[are] coming in and I keep thinking 'do we have [a] different Bible
or one Bible?' I was taught one Bible, one mission. [In the] early
days [the] missionaries came and planted the Church and now the
government is coming with changes. I can see the development coming -
wa apelelo ['place is growing']. Changes [are] coming in, [the]
mission came and [the] government came and this Gogodala area is
changing.

The Gogodala experience of development has been limited. As the
colonial administrative centre for Western Division was a
considerable distance to the south, mission-based expatriates were
the primary vehicle for local understandings and beliefs about white
people. Few colonial administrators or explorers travelled through
the complex of swamps that separated Daru, the District
Headquarters, from Gogodala villages. The earliest community and
high schools were established, financed and staffed by expatriate
missionaries, as was the Balimo Health Centre. Although now funded
primarily by the national government, expatriate doctors have
continued to staff the centre since its inception. Awaba School, the
only high school in the area, which services Gogodala as well as
other neighbouring groups, still has several permanent expatriate
mission members on the staff. Roads, airstrips and other colonial
buildings were also constructed according to mission advice and
effort. The Missionary Aviation Fellowship (MAF) continues to base
itself at the Gogodala station of Kawito on the Aramia River,
providing services between small centres and airstrips.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the hunting of crocodiles for skins
yielded large return for local hunters, but was a transitory
enterprise. Rubber plantations established at two villages on the
Aramia River at the same time proved successful, with high levels of
production and excellent yields. Nonetheless, local interest in
these plantations was tepid at best (Weymouth 1978:253-4). In 1975,
the Department of Primary Industry (DPI) initiated a cattle project
on the Aramia River, providing 132 cows and 16 bulls (Weymouth
1978:260-2). Appropriate slaughtering practices were established and
facilities and freezers provided. Although there are now numerous
cows that wander around the lands surrounding villages like Tai,
little is done in terms of breeding or butchering cattle for sale.
The slaughterhouse at Balimo, one of the last to be used, has been
inoperable for some years. And although eight Gogodala villages on
the Fly River receive regular compensatory payments for degradation
of land and water as a result of the activities of Ok Tedi Mining
Limited (OTML), and Phillips Petroleum unsuccessfully tested for oil
in Balimo in 1995, little of substance has resulted from these
experiences.

One of the most influential experiences for Gogodala
understandings of development occurred in the 1970s and 1980s in
Balimo. During this time, the significance of `customary ways' or
iniwa ela gi - `the ways of the ancestors' - to the initiation of
development became apparent. In the early 1970s, an expatriate
Australian, Anthony Crawford, came to the area in collaboration with
the Australian Arts Advisory Board. Inspired by photographs and
artefacts of Gogodala dance masks, racing canoes, paddles, spears,
shields and other ritual objects collected during the early colonial
period, Crawford arrived to acquire some of these carvings for the
Art Board. He found that the majority of these objects were no
longer produced.

Sporting an inventory of over one hundred black and white
photographs of the art that he had come to collect, Crawford sat
down with groups of Gogodala people and studied these pictures. Some
of the carvings and objects, he writes, were easily recognised by
the older people, while others were only marvelled at by those
gathered. Crawford (1976:5) relates that when he asked whether such
pieces could be reproduced, he was informed that it was against
`mission law'. He writes that, it was preached that `to be a
Christian the past was not to be allied with the present' (Crawford
1976:5).

Crawford was primarily interested in the brightly coloured, clan-
based designs associated with male initiatory and Aida ceremonies
targeted by the early missionaries. He encouraged some of the older
men to recreate a selection of the carvings depicted in the images
that he had brought with him. He gave them the impetus and
confidence to teach younger men the techniques of carving and the
principles of production of particular clan designs (Crawford
1981:164). As these carvings were based on stories about the
original ancestors, information still vital for local communities,
the recitation of ancestral stories was also encouraged. Bege Mula,
the pre-eminent contemporary artist in Balimo, said that Crawford's
legacy lies in the fact that he urged the local people to carve
`their own things' rather than plain, unpainted carvings bought and
encouraged by the missionaries.28

Crawford's encouragement and considerable local endorsement of
the project led to the establishment of a Gogodala Cultural Centre
in Balimo in the form of a traditional longhouse.29 It was
constructed entirely from bush materials and was built to housethe
growing number of carvings available for sale and display. The
longhouse was also a site of renewed interest in old dancing
techniques and sequences in which the carvings and musical
instruments were utilised. Aida dances and others associated with
male and female ceremonies of the past were reviewed and revived, as
were other types of dance.30 When the longhouse was opened in 1974
by then Chief Minister of PNG Michael Somare, a group of women
danced through the Centre to `chase the spirits from the house'
(Crawford 1976:6; 1981:164). During this time, dancers travelled to
Port Moresby, and danced before the Queen in the late 1970s, as well
as participating in other cultural events in a newly Independent
Papua New Guinea.

Despite this, and despite support from both provincial and
national governments, the construction of the Centre was a source of
considerable debate and recrimination. In the 1970s and 1980s,
Crawford declared that the Gogodala had experienced a `cultural
revival' after many years of missionary discouragement.3" Although
Crawford insists that the idea of setting up a Cultural Centre was a
local idea, the longhouse aroused much bitterness in the area,
particularly between village groups. Lines were drawn between
Christianity and `customary ways', not simply on the part of the
white missionaries. Local pastors preached against the building of
the longhouse, the revival of carving techniques as well as Aida
dances. Many from villages not involved in the revival argued that
carvings made by those at the Centre were evil and indicative of
their general lack of Christian faith. The debate was framed in
terms of practices deemed appropriate for Gogodala Christians.
Christianity has long been the measure by which Gogodala compare
themselves to other Papua New Guineans and the concept of Christian
country crystallised at this time. Espousing a Christianity deemed
essentially Gogodala, the recreation of dances and objects
associated with a past 'heathen' lifestyle, then, stimulated a
renewed and at times ferocious debate about the nature and extent of
Christian country.

The revival and subsequent discussions also raised the
possibility of a fruitful relationship between Christianity, custom
and development. Crawford argued that the Gogodala could combine
both customary ways and Christianity. Many agreed and saw the
potential inherent in the sale of carvings to tourists and the
promotion of Gogodala customary ways and traditional dances in light
of favourable regional and national cultural policies. Some argued
that these were `the selling days' that were `God's way of helping
us make money'.

I have argued elsewhere that a concern with finding an
appropriate path to development lies at the base of discussions
about Christianity, custom and development (see Dundon in press).
Various bodily and consumptive practices and comportments, as well
as the continuation of links to environmental and ancestral beings
are said to initiate this kind of development process. When the
first missionaries came, dance was one of the signs of a person who
continued to adhere to Aida and a 'heathen' past. Since the revival,
however, the role of dance within a Christian ela gi has, to a
certain extent, been renegotiated. Members of the CEF, through their
emphasis on dance in Christian worship, are beginning to articulate
the basis of another potential path to development.

DANCING TO A DIFFERENT TUNE

Gogodala say that the desire to dance is initiated by music or
sika; even in the old days, people couldn't resist the music.32 The
beating of the drums would lure neighbouring villagers to the host
village in anticipation of dancing and subsequent feasting. An ex-
ECPNG pastor, recruited in the 1940s by Pasiya at Kimama village,
suggested that he had joined the Baha'i because they danced to
music. `In Baha'i Faith', he said, `dancing is not bad. Dancing was
put on earth by God; it is for rejoicing and it is a time of
happiness when it comes to dancing time'. It is music that is said
to lure Gogodala Christians, particularly women, away from ECPNG to
churches like the CEF, dividing families and villages. In this
dialogue about dance and forms of worship, dance is represented as
dangerous, as in the instance of parties held in 1999 to celebrate
victory in Balimo rugby league grand finals. At each of the three
parties, disco dancing followed the feasting. At the first village,
the morning after the party was held, an old woman died. A week
later, at a different village, the scenario was repeated and another
elderly woman died. At the feast held at the third village, the
Gogodala District Administrator, an ECPNG member, stood and urged
those present to choose between `their culture' and Christianity.

In this paper I have suggested that a recent interest in dance in
Christian forms of worship, instigated by various new churches in
the region, forms part of an ongoing discussion about the confluence
between custom and Christianity. 33 This debate reached a crescendo
of recrimination and reconstruction during the cultural revival of
the 1970s, where ideas about Christian country and the kind of
lifestyle upon which it was based were publicly revised. In the
process, a redefinition of appropriate forms of bodily movement and
comportment meant that many Gogodala became involved in
'traditional' dancing, associated primarily with the pre-Christian
past. In the more recent past, there has been an increased interest
in dance in Christian contexts. One person commented that new
churches would have to be more sturdily constructed and built closer
to the ground to withstand the pounding feet and moving bodies
increasingly characteristic of Church services. The ambivalence of
many Gogodala towards the emergence of dance as a significant form
of Christian worship parallels a deep uncertainty about the future
of Christian country.

It also foregrounds the problematic of the ongoing relationship
between expatriates and Gogodala. In both the colonial and
postcolonial context, Gogodala have looked to Europeans to provide
access to a certain level of services and resources. From schools to
health centres and local forms of business, expatriate missionaries
have been pivotal in Gogodala understandings of relationships with
wider agents and institutions. This is an area of PNG that has
received little attention or financial assistance from national or
regional governments and, in general, Gogodala express little regard
for politicians, believing that state structures are organised
primarily around the principles of wantokism (lit. `one talk';
language affiliates). Goddard (1995:70) has noted that in some areas
of Papua New Guinea the state is seen as a `big man' who, once
accorded the respect of a leader, is required to fulfil its
obligations to the community. Yet, in recent times, the state has
been increasingly unable to fulfil certain basic administrative
functions involving health care, education and the construction and
maintenance of roads and many rural areas are without basic
resources.34 This has only served to reinforce the intimacy between
white missionaries and Gogodala communities, united in their
Christianity. It has also meant that white people, in particular,
are accorded a significant place in the path to development
envisaged by the Gogodala.

A general sense of dissatisfaction with national and regional
governments has only served to underscore the betrayal felt by many
towards `small brother', who has failed to educate and provide the
guidance necessary for development. Yet, as Michael Young (1997:95)
has noted recently, Papua New Guineans can and do express
disappointment with the failure of Christianity to fulfil
expectations whilst maintaining a Christian lifestyle. Recent
interest in the establishment of and community participation in new
churches and faiths, such as CEF and Baha'i, has focussed on dance
and its relevance in both the past and the present. By utilising a
dialogue in the Pacific characterising pan-national evangelical
movements and representatives, local leaders of the CEF are moving
away from the more insular focus of the ECPNG and its connections
with the expatriate mission. By challenging ECPNG policy on the use
of dance in the worship of God, they and other denominations are
critiquing past decisions that continue to adversely affect the
future of Gogodala communities. The current predicaments of Gogodala
people and their church, the ECPNG, are taken as indicators of the
failure of the mission to fulfil certain basic promises. It is not,
however, about the rejection of Christianity or the repudiation of
the relationship between white people and Gogodala. On the contrary,
CEF leaders posit the reinstitution of a peculiarly Melanesian
Christianity in the area, while many of their proponents see it as a
way of realising and utilising the close relationship between
Gogodala and Europeans. It marks, instead, a renegotiation of past
and present links with white people and other Melanesians in the
hope that this will initiate development.

NOTES

1. See Errington & Gewertz 1995, Tuzin 1997, Robbins 1995 and
1998, Roscoe 1999 and Fife 2001 for examples of the expansion of new
churches into PNG.

2. In 1999, members of the APCM formally became part of the
Pioneers, an international evangelical community formed on the basis
of the continued need for 'new' missions in 'old' places.

3. This is a revised version of a paper presented at James Cook
University in 1999. My thanks go to the staff of the School of
Anthropology and Archaeology for their insightful comments on that
paper. This paper is based on fieldwork conducted for my PhD
dissertation between 1995 and 1996 and subsequent fieldwork between
1998-1999 and 1999-2000. My thanks go to Charles and Callum, without
whom this work would not be possible; the School of Archaeology and
Anthropology, The Australian National University fo\r funding and
support during the initial period of fieldwork and the people of
Tai, particularly Mala and Kukupiyato Sogowa, and Sakuliyato Mala,
and the people of Balimo and surrounding villages, especially Kamo
and Genasi Bagali and their families. Thanks also to two anonymous
reviewers for Oceania who made very useful comments on how to
improve the paper by clarifying the central problematic.

4. Eves (1996:85) notes that the `refashioning of bodies' was an
inherent part of the colonial project and was central to evangelical
rhetoric and practice. For the Methodist missionaries that Eves
examines, the idea was to instil a Christian conscience through
certain `pedagogical practices aimed at the body' (Eves 1996:86).
`In this context', he writes, `the disciplined body acts as a marker
both of conversion and of the move from 'savage' to `civilised"
(Eves 1996:86).

5. Bernard Lea (1940:23), an expatriate missionary, noted that
the early missionaries were more interested in the upper Fly River
peoples than those on the coast or at its mouth. He wrote in 1940
that `the scope offered by the lower Fly river tribes is limited. It
was never viewed as aught else but the portal to the extensive
territories of the west. Its value is its strategic location, its
utility as a base, and its facility of communication with the
outside world' (Lea 1940:23).

6. In 1914, it was estimated that there were 6000 to 7000
Gogodala people living in 22 villages along the Fly and Aramia
Rivers (Beaver 1914:411; Lyons 1914:99). This made Gogodala people
one of the most populous groups of the area. In the 1996 census,
this population estimate had grown to 20,800 situated in 28 villages
and 5 mission or government stations.

7. Although originally at Madiri plantation on the south bank of
the Fly River, Albert Drysdale, the first UFM missionary in the
region became convinced that the Gogodala people were physically and
mentally superior to their neighbours (Prince & Prince 1981:12).
Consequently, late in 1932, Drysdale and Theo Berger, a fellow
member of the UFM, accompanied by Gogodala plantation workers,
travelled across the Fly River reaching Kelesa village on the other
side. They visited twenty-four Gogodala villages inland from Kelesa
in five weeks, settling on Balimo as the site of the next UFM base.
In a mission publication about the establishment of the UFM and its
subsequent churches, John and Moyra Prince (1981:17) wrote;'[n]ow
two things were absolutely clear to them [Drysdale and Berger]. The
Gogodalas represented a missionary target more strategic than
anything the Fly River could offer, and Madiri was clearly the wrong
base from which to reach them'.

8. The UFM and local Gogodala pastors had a significant impact on
other people to the north and northwest, their influence being felt
in the southern highlands and into Irian Jaya. By 1968, more than
thirty-nine primarily Gogodala couples and one hundred and fifty six
pastors and their spouses were living in these different communities
(Light and Life 1968:8;
see also Prince & Prince 1991:26-9 and
Schieffelin 1976).

9. Ross Weymouth (1978:104) pointed out that the UFM was
essentially conservative in practice as it was based on the
acceptance of the `original scriptures as divinely inspired'.

10. Aida was the culmination of male ceremonies into which men
were initiated and invested with the status of Aida Dala or Aida
men. In this process, they came to know about the `yam medicine'
that could bring the dead back to life. Earlier stages of these
ceremonies involved the teaching of young boys the tenets of clan
and canoe, marriage and gardens.

11. Local proponents of Christianity had a great impact on
villagers. Two local men, who had attended the London Missionary
Society's Kwato Bible School, travelled around several villages
preaching and destroying many objects on their own and accompanied
by missionaries. See Crawford (1981:41-2) for Len Tywman's
recollection of the burning of Aida objects at Kimama village in
1936.

12. These were European styles of dance including the waltz and
country dancing. One woman remembered that these administrators
`were very strict; they wouldn't like to see the ladies dancing by
themselves. Even if the men were just sitting down, they would force
the men to dance with the ladies'.

13. Once an issue is `brought out to the people', it becomes both
public knowledge and a community concern. People can then debate the
implications and outcome of the issue and decide on the best course
of action. In this way, bringing a problem to the people often
facilitates a resolution of the matter, as although most are aware
of the problem, it is not until it is made public that they can
attempt to deal with it.

14. I attended a women's District ECPNG conference in March 1995
held at Uladu village on the Aramia River. Between 350 and 400
women, primarily Gogodala, were present at the conference, which
lasted for 4 days. The daily services consisted mainly of sermons,
singing and discussion groups that most attended (see Dundon 1998
for further details). Missionaries instigated these conferences to
stop celebrations between villages in which one village group
invited another to share in dancing and feasting.

15. The SDA Church was established in Kotale in the 1970s after
an ECPNG man joined the SDA in Moresby, where he was working. In his
holidays he would return to his village, Kotale, and preach about
SDA.

16. This was the first time that the ECPNG leadership fell out of
Gogodala hands. One of the most respected and active early Gogodala
pastors, Danaya Baila, went around many of the villages trying to
calm ECPNG members but en route he suffered a heart attack and died
at Wasua village. For many, this was a sign of the changes to come.

17. Although not necessarily germane in terms of the legal
ramifications of the registration of CEF as a Church, most local
people feel that entering their names on registration lists for
development projects, land ownership lists and other such projects
makes public their participation and commitment and validates their
claim.

18. At present, membership of the CEF is confined to the Gogodala
area, and among expatriate Gogodala living and working in Port
Moresby. ECPNG Churches in Moresby have been greatly challenged by
the establishment of the CEF and have lost large numbers of their
members to their rival. In the Gogodala region, smaller numbers have
defected to the CEF, but certainly between 1998 to 2000, up to one
third of ECPNG members in any given village declared themselves CEF.

19. He is also the only Gogodala to hold a Bachelors degree of
any type and is currently conducting postgraduate studies at the
University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG).

20. Lea (1940:10) suggests that Gogodala people were eager to
welcome missionaries to their villages and they showed promise for
the development of the mission and church. Weymouth (1978:105) notes
that UFM missionaries were concerned primarily with `saving souls'
and did so through any means at their command.

21. Pastor's families represent a disproportionate number of
people educated to Grade 10 and beyond.

22. In March 2000, the resident mission doctor and her husband
declared to the Church gathered at Balimo that they would be leaving
in August and that they would recommend to the missionary council
that the post remain vacant. This amounts to a withdrawal from the
Balimo District and caused great consternation for the Church
hierarchy.

23. PASUWE established several non-profit stores in places like
Balimo and Kawito as well as other centres in PNG and still operates
in many parts of the country as a Christian business. The PASUWE
stores in Balimo and Kawito were closed in the early and mid 1990s
due to poor management.

24. A conservative form of Christianity and the gendered
expectations of expatriate missionaries serve to underscore a
continued focus on 'hardworking' people as the moral basis of
Gogodala society. In sermons presented

by both expatriate and Gogodala women at ECPNG conferences held
in 1995 and 1996, there was an emphasis on the image and virtues of
hardworking women.

25. An ECPNG handbook on money and biblical references to it has
been published in Gogodala. Kipale Gosa Gi (`money fashion/style')
outlines in some detail the pernicious nature of money and the
challenges it represents to the establishment and maintenance of a
Christian lifestyle.

26. Adults who do not exhibit such characteristics endanger their
families and villages. In the past, the careless voice or wanderings
of a child could bring disease and death to a whole village.
Sickness is `like a person' which, in the old days, could be
attracted to a village by the call or smell of a child or careless
adult. People who were irresponsible could allow sickness to engulf
the whole village, not simply their own family.

27. In my thesis, I argue that landscape, the places and spaces
of the area and those imagined elsewhere, is vital to the perception
of development envisaged by local people. Imaginings of other places
like Australia, Britain and America underlie constructions of the
future, of what development may bring.

28. Bege Mula was one of the first carvers to show an interest in
Crawford and the photographs. At that time, Bege recalls, he was a
young man and he brought a small painted and decorated canoe prow to
Crawford who was staying at Balimo. Crawford was excited by Bege's
canoe prow and asked him for more carvings (Crawford 1981:166). Bege
went on to display his own work in Port Moresby, Australia and
Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.

29 Accommodating whole villages of up to 300-400 people, these
longhouses of old were seen by early missionaries as the space of
dance, spirits and male ritual. They encouraged local Christians to
build smaller, family dwellings. By the 1960s, the last of these
longhouses fell down and was not rebuilt. In my thesis, I suggest
that th\e construction of a Cultural Centre in the form of a
traditional longhouse angered pastors, missionaries and local people
opposed to the Centre because it challenged the teachings of the
Church and mission about spaces as well as practices of the past.

30. Crawford encouraged the dancing of Aida dances rather than
neighbouring Kiwai ones which the missionaries and pastors had
suggested as an alternative.

31. See for example Crawford 1975, 1976 and 1981. In my thesis I
outline several levels of interest and dispute that arose out of
this 'revival' including national and regional politics, local
debates about Christianity, and international academic discussions
about culture and authenticity (see for example Babadzan 1988; Jolly
1992). For the purposes of this paper, however, I will look at the
issues that were debated at the local level, as they are germane to
Gogodala understandings of development, provincial and national
politics, and relations with expatriates.

32. Sika is the general word for noise as well as the sound of
the waluwa or kundu drum.

33. Susan Reed (1998:504) has noted that there has been an
increasing interest in the politics of dance and movement in recent
debates about the politics of culture. She writes; '[d]ance as an
expression and practice of relations of power and protest,
resistance and complicity, has been the subject of a number of
historical and ethnographic analyses of recent years' (Reed
1998:505). A group of recent papers produced in The Australian
Journal of Anthropology on `The Politics of Dance' include work on
Indian dance, Aboriginal dance in contemporary Australian contexts,
and dance in the Cook Islands (see for example Ram 2000; Alexeyeff
2000; Magowan 2000).

34. People who live near mines or logging sites make use of
facilities provided by these large-scale projects, or establish
local business and entrepreneurial ventures through compensation
payments (Brown & Ploeg 1997:521).

REFERENCES

ALEXEYEFF, K. 2000.Dragging Drag: The Performance of Gender and
Sexuality in the Cook Islands. The Australian Journal of
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BABADZAN, A. 1988. Kastom and Nation Building in the South
Pacific. In R. Guidieri, F. Pellizzi, and SJ Tambiah (eds),
Ethnicities and Nations: Processes of Interethnic Relations in Latin
America, Southeast Asia, and the Pacific, pp. 199-228. Houston:
Rothko Chapel and University of Texas Press.

BEAVER, W. N. 1914. A Description of the Girara District, Western
Papua. Royal Geographical Journal 43:407-13.